Reactivity To Thoughtfulness- A Corporate Manager’s Journey

“He doesn’t work well with others.”

“He has issues dealing with bad news.”

“He is a star performer, but he is lacking executive presence.”

These are some of the typical “pain points” I have seen when organizations hire coaches for their mid-managers. Organizations often spend a lot of time, energy and money on the symptoms, throw expensive training with very little sustainable impact. My experience says these are mostly symptoms. A coach approach can help address those underlying issues.

Here is the story of a mid-level manager at a large tech organization. Let’s call him Peter. Peter’s issue was poor conflict management. He had a hard time letting go. Hearing the story from his HR leader Peter sounded like a typical “jerk”, I didn’t feel confident to coach him. And yet as a coach, I disciplined myself to choose curiosity and compassion when I met Peter as he was interviewing prospective coaches. To my surprise, not only I saw his pain of living reactively, I found him ready for a coaching approach.

Peter was very unhappy in the past 3-4 years. He received all the negative/constructive feedback from his management, but he didn’t know where to ask for help. The constant negative feedback became quiet demoralizing.

Peter and I agreed to start the coaching. After about 4/5 months of coaching, he started showing more positivity at his workplace and especially in difficult conversations. His manager and team recognized the change that resulted in a well-deserved promotion.

Here are some of the root causes we identified that drove Peter’s negative behavior.

Operating from a reactive place

Lack of Emotional Awareness and Self-Management (EQ)

Lack of a meaningful goal/vision for himself

Operating from a Reactive Place

If someone made an “unreasonable” ask of Peter’s team, he either sucked it up or fought tooth and nail. Through coaching, he learned that there was a third option. It led him to have a conversation with the requestor to understand the bigger context. It helped him co-create a more graceful solution to that original request.

Lack of Emotional Awareness and Self-Management (EQ)

When there was something at stake, Peter acted very negatively, driven by the anticipated extra workload, conflict and so on and so forth. During our work together, Peter developed his skill of getting in touch with his emotions. He is now more aware of his distressing emotions and is more capable of managing his internal reaction through techniques like simple breathing.

Lack of a Meaningful Goal/Vision for Himself

Throughout our course of coaching, Peter created his life vision, discovered his core values which helped him see things from a bigger perspective. He now sees his work and his time with this organization only as a part of a bigger whole. He designed some other activities outside of work that is meaningful for him.

He has become more conscious of his other “needs” that can’t be fulfilled by his work. That coveted promotion has become only one of many things he cares these days.

Peter is now much more fulfilled and happier overall. In his own words,

“The holistic approach of coaching, encompassing both professional and personal aspects have been an eye-opener for me, as I have found my inner self. This insight has translated directly towards my professional life and how I conduct myself at work. I have been more thoughtful in my approach while making sure I am doing the right thing for my organization.”

It is always very heartening to see how much progress a coaching client makes in such a short amount of time. As a ripple effect, his team, peers, and the bigger organization are benefitting from his new way of being. Peter’s example is only one of many ways a coaching approach can help the middle managers and their organization make sustainable progress.

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Meta

When I met Sharmin, I was grieving the loss of my old project and overwhelmed with the scope of the new project I inherited – one that I had no passion for, but felt an obligation to my employees and team to help transition into the team. I knew I needed a change, but had trepidation about how to even begin the process of finding a job outside of my organization or company.
I wanted a quick fix – a pep talk to motivate me to get over my fears and get a better job as soon as possible. Sharmin made me look my career and life at a higher level. She challenged me to explore and identify my values. Once I had mapped out exactly what my core values were, in both my life and my career, she helped me identify the instances in my career where I was truly living my core values, when I was truly being my authentic self, and when and where I had a true sense of fulfillment and happiness.
Her holistic approach to coaching opened my eyes. Through these new lenses of my values and my higher self, I gained clarity about the type of job, and the type of people, I really wanted to work with to achieve true happiness. Since we began our sessions, I’ve had profound changes internally and externally:
I was promoted; I gave up the role of manager which I found unfulfilling, and refocused on my role as a software engineer; I left my old team and found a new organization where I feel my values and those of my management and peers are closely aligned; and I’ve become closer to my family and my loved ones.

Principal SW Engineering Lead - Microsoft

Thank you for taking the time to share your insights with us. In particular, I really like your advice to think of our goals in terms of being outcome based, which helps me think more concretely in terms of what I really want. It is also nice to be reminded that there are a lot of factors that contributes to our happiness, work and family is just a part of the happiness pie.

S. Chan
Microsoft

Sharmin is an excellent executive coach and I would recommend her to anyone looking to engage in leadership development. She helped me discover my career intention, which resulted in an accelerated path to a leadership role over a five-month period. Her coaching methodology is focused on professional and personal development, which is key to be an effective leader in today's business climate.

D. Nibberich
Senior Director- Technical Sales

Sharmin helped me reshape my thought process and approach to managing people and issues on a daily basis. Sharmin has also shown me the value of dedicating time to focus on being intentional and including all supporting team members in the journey. This has allowed me to leverage the collective group when trying to achieve goals. I would recommend Sharmin as a career coach to anyone that wants to take their career to next level.